Psychological Measurement a Hundred and Twenty-Five Years Later

Abstract

When writing this paper as well as during our commemorative luncheon, I could not help going back in memory to two experiences. One of these occurred during the fall semester of 1935 while I was visiting professor at Northwestern University and took advantage of the opportunity and had the rare privilege of attending Thurstone’s seminar. The atmosphere at the University of Chicago at that time clearly reflected the birth and early infancy of both the Psychometric Society and its Journal Psychometrika . The other experience comes back in the form of an image of our first annual dinner in the Inn at Dartmouth College in September 1936. The banquet had an unexpectedly large and enthusiastic attendance. Thurstone provided one of his memorable addresses, which was later published in Science , entitled “Psychology as a quantitative rational science” [35]. The address is well worth rereading. I might spend the time alloted to me in declaiming the merits of quantitative psychology and what it has done for the progress of psychology in general. But in this group I shall take our substantial contribution for granted and try instead to help measurement psychologists look at themselves and their own progress and some of their own problems.

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